This invention relates to poultry feed systems in which feed is conveyed to a series of feeding stations where it is dispensed for chickens (or other livestock) to eat and, more particularly, to a poultry feeder located at each of the feeding stations which allows young chicks to readily see and to have access to the feed in the feeder, and which is adjustable to retain feed in the feeder and to better accommodate larger birds as the birds mature.
Poultry feedings systems are well-known in the art. Examples of such feeding systems and feeders used in them are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,007,380; 4,476,811; 4,003,339; 3,971,340; 3,598,087; 3,415,228; 3,230,933; and 3,033,163. As shown in these various patents, feed from a bulk feed tank located outside of the poultry house is discharged into a hopper or similar intake receptacle. From there, the feed is conveyed through a conveyor tube to a sequence of spaced feed stations. From the conveyor, feed is deposited into a feed pan at each feed station. In the past, feeders were designed for use by older birds which had grown tall enough to see into and to reach the feed in the feed pan at the bottom of the feeder. For young chicks, it was recognized that these small birds could not see the feed in the feed pan and that the small chicks could not access the feed because the feed pan was often too high. Consequently, upon the introduction of chicks in a poultry house, feed was often simply deposited in piles on the floor of the house (or on a strip of paper laid on the floor) intermediate each of the feeding stations. This allowed the young chicks to see and to eat the feed in the piles, but resulted in substantial spoilage and waste of feed.
In the past, the feed conveyor tube was provided with openings intermediate the feeding stations which, so that prior to introduction of chicks into the house, may be opened to deposit piles of feed between the feeding stations. As shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,488,509, shallow feed pans were sometimes used to contain the loose feed and to provide access to the chicks. Such shallow feed pans required substantial labor to install in the house prior to introduction of the chicks and still resulted in a substantial waste of feed.
It will be understood that a typical poultry house may be 40-60 feet wide and several hundred feet long. The feed conveyor may run in feed lines or in an endless loop the length of the house such that there are two or more rows of feed stations. The feeders in these feed lines are position so as to be relatively close together such at feedings. Typically, there would be about one feeder for every 60-65 birds. There may be several hundred feeders in the poultry house.
Such automated poultry feeding systems typically employed the use of one or more control feeding stations in the feed line to control the operation of the feed conveyor system. These control units were feeders positioned in the feed line at one or more desired locations so as turn on the feed conveyor when the birds had eaten the feed in the feed stations so as to insure that there was feed for the birds at all times. However, if the control unit operated differently than the other feeders in the feed line, or if there would be some difference between the control unit and the other feeders, the birds might well eat less more or less feed from the control unit than from the other feeders such that the amount of feed in the control unit was not representative of the feed in the other feeders.
Feeders were developed which might be usable by both young and more mature chicks. Such feeders are shown in the above-noted U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,476,811 and 5,007,380 which incorporated special windows in their feed drop tube which could be used to flood the feed pan with feed to insure access by the small chicks. While these feeders solved some of the problems, others still remained. One, for example, involved excess feed deposited in the drop tube and in the pan may become stale or off taste to the birds. This may result in the birds not eating as they should with a consequent slower growth rate or a lower conversion of feed into marketable poultry protein. This can lead to waste of the feed and spoilage of the feed.
A second problem involved adjusting the height of the pan so it is accessible by all of the chicks. Pans located at low spots or areas of the poultry house floor will be too high for young chicks to see or to reach into the feed pan. In practice, with a poultry house having a length of about 300 feet or so, it has been found necessary to maintain the level of the litter on the floor relative to the level of the feed line supported overhead to be within a close limit (e.g., 1-2 inches) so as to insure that all of the prior art flood window feeders would properly flood when the feed line was lowered toward the floor. In addition, if variations in floor level relative to the level of the feed line were present, variations as small as 1.5 inches could cause some of the feeders of the line to be properly adjusted for the height of the birds while others of the feeders would be too high for the birds to see the feed in the feeders. This could cause the birds to not feed at the feeders which were too high and to congregate at the other feeders such that too many birds would try to eat from one feeder. This could result in stress and in that birds may not obtain adequate feed rations and some birds may not grow at the desired rates. Also, the feed in the feeders that were too high might be wasted.
Third, the feeders were supported (suspended) from the conveyor tube and the latter was typically suspended from the roof of the poultry house by means of cables and winches such that the entire conveyor along with all of the feed pans may be raised and lowered, as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,033,163. While the height of the conveyor above the floor may be relatively uniform, variations in height still occurred. In feeders such as those described in the noted prior patents, height adjustment of the feeder relative to the floor is non-existent, or limited. Upon lowering the feeders toward the floor, one of the feeders contact the floor or the litter prior to the others (due to a high spot of the litter on the floor). This may thus place undue weight on this one feeder.